Former Charlie's Angels star Farrah Fawcett is suing over a 1970s poster that helped make her a worldwide pin-up.

She is taking legal action against two companies who she claims have used the iconic photo of her in a red swimsuit without permission.

The photograph, showing Fawcett with her head tilted back and her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, became the No 1 selling poster in the 1970s and was pinned to many a teenage boy's bedroom wall.

Farrah Fawcett (R) with her fellow Angels, Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson. Fawcett has been working on a documentary about her health battle

The actress is suing Bio-Graphics and Pie International Inc. over alleged illegal use of the poster.

Fawcett says she 'owns and possesses all the photographs and negatives of all the photographs taken at the photo shoot' and is claiming more than £75,000 in damages.

The poster has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

The photo was taken in 1976 and became a big seller after Fawcett found fame in Charlie's Angels.

Bruce McBroom, a freelance photographer who had worked previously with Farrah, took the now-famous picture and was paid £750 for his work.

In recent years the actress, 62, has been battling cancer and travelled to Germany for experimental treatment.

Her illness put on hold a reunion of the original Charlie's Angels, one of the most popular programmes in the 1970s.

Even though it is 33 years old the poster is still available for sale and is believed to have been copied more than a billion times for use on T-shirts or other posters.

It is rated as one of the iconic images of the 1970s and a copy was put inside the Oblio Satellite Probe that was shot into space by NASA in 1977.